Timmy and Zimbabwe Ben on Spinning Crap Assets Into Gold (And You Totally Falling For It)

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and then-New York Fed President Timothy Geithner told senators on April 3, 2008, that the tens of billions of dollars in “assets” the government agreed to purchase in the rescue of Bear Stearns Cos. were “investment-grade.” They didn’t share everything the Fed knew about the money.

The so-called assets included collateralized debt obligations and mortgage-backed bonds with names like HG-Coll Ltd. 2007-1A that were so distressed, more than $40 million already had been reduced to less than investment-grade by the time the central bankers testified. The government also became the owner of $16 billion of credit-default swaps, and taxpayers wound up guaranteeing high-yield, high-risk junk bonds.

Of course, this was all good practice for Bernanke to get up again come fall and demand TARP with his good friend Hank Paulson, insisting the money would be used to purchase toxic assets that absolutely had to be removed from firms' rotting balance sheets lest doomsday hit before the Mayans had a chance to sacrifice their last virgin to a volcano in 2012.

They were going to do it anyway, why not just tell us the truth? It's not like anyone would have tried to stop them.